Chitralis oppose occupation of natural resources by outsiders

By Zar Alam Khan


ISLAMABAD: The Frontier Miners Association’s Chitral chapter has warned of a strong resistance against bids to lease the valley’s natural resources to outsiders and the alleged injustices and discrimination continuing against the local miners.
It called upon Chief Minister NWFP Ameer Haider Khan Hoti to put an end to the injustices with the small miners of Chitral.
The chairman of the association’s Chitral chapter, Col (retired) Sardar Mohammad, said that for the last over 15 years officials of the survey and drawing section of the Directorate of Mines and Minerals, NWFP, had been passing on the GPS coordinates, including the mineral area maps of the prospective miners to non-local parties, pouring cold water on years-long efforts of the would-be miners of Chitral.
He said local investors had been deprived of their rights to lease while well-connected parties were being allotted the prospective areas much to the detriment of the indigenous people.
“This shows that Chitral is not only being robbed of its non-renewable assets, but also outside parties are being given a free hand to plunder the resources leaving the locals entangled in a rotten system.”
Col Sardar said when the DMM director general initiated action against the officials, the latter began approaching highly-placed people to keep alive their hopes of retaining their jobs, caring less for the fast-brewing charged atmosphere in Chitral where nationalistic tendencies were at an all time high.
“Resentment against the corrupt system and its inept officials has engulfed the entire district and forced political opponents to find common grounds to rise against gross injustices spanning over the past 63 years,” he added.
He said the local chapters of the PPP, PPP-S, PML-N, PML-Q, JUI, JI and ANP had agreed to safeguard the interest of the area and formed a mines and minerals monitoring committee to force the government to stop discrimination against the nascent local mining sector.
The monitoring committee, which is also headed by Col Sardar, has demanded that the government should share allotted areas’ details with the committee and the district administration, get the committee and the district administration’s clearance that personal property of local residents is not leased out, start work in an allotted area within three months of the issuance of clearance certificates, stop discrimination against the locals and ensure through a transparent system that locals get preference in lease allotments.
He said that amid rising unemployment rate in the remote district, such injustices were seen by all as the ethnic cleansing of the indigenous people. If not mitigated forthwith, such injustices have all the ingredients to spark violence in an otherwise calm Chitral that has served as a beacon of peace and force its residents towards a Balochistan-like situation. There is already a loud talk by Hazara district nazims to form a separate province where their rights are safeguarded and Chitral is being forced to think on the same lines.
Col Sardar called upon Chief Minister Ameer Haider Khan Hoti to play the role of a statesman to safeguard the rights of Chitral and end the sense of deprivation in the district.